


Penumbra

by Rodent



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pseudo-Incest, i love this ship smh @ me, maybe?? Knowing Star Wars it can't hurt to have that tag lol, might add abuse warnings later in the next chapters bc lets be real this ship ain't healthy in canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5480153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodent/pseuds/Rodent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thoughts rose unbidden and unopposed to his mind and he found himself as Ben again, thinking, as he drip-drip-dripped onto the stark snow, that he should have relinquished his saber.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one of a thing, mostly summary of the end of the movie from Kylo Ren's point of view, will develop into a redemption thing at some point probably and also most likely unhealthy (at least initially) Ren/Rey. Obvious warning for spoilers!

pe·num·bra ( _noun_ ) : the shadow cast by the earth or moon over an area experiencing a partial eclipse; the less dark outer part of a sunspot, surrounding the dark core.

\---

There was a young woman strapped to the table.

Kylo Ren sat, his fingers steepled, his breathing even and deliberately controlled. She had yet to stir, yet to blink back to consciousness under the harsh station lights, yet to strain those slender wrists against the cold cuffs, but he didn't mind, he told himself. He could be patient, if he ignored the sifting anger underneath him. She would wake.

And wake she did. She was confused briefly, as those pale eyelashes snapped open and took in the unfamiliar scene - but she remembered and recovered quickly, meeting his gaze (or where she presumed his gaze was, given his mask) with a solid sort of look. That was good, Kylo Ren thought, his patience running out like quicksand in an hourglass. It was far past time that they began.

“Where am I?” She demanded, as if she were in a place to make such demands. “Who are you?”

“I,” he said, standing, (the heavy swish of a cloak at his back and the gravel of his helmeted voice gave him a quiet thrill), “Am Kylo Ren.” She did not respond, instead choosing to glare at him.

“I know you know of the map,” he continued, stepping closer. His boots were heavy on the grated floor. “And I know that you have seen it. You will show it to me.”

When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. “Did you kill my friends?”

He raised an eyebrow under his mask, amused. “I do not care for them. I am sure it will reassure you to know that I know nothing of their whereabouts.” She seemed to relax a bit at this. He plowed forward. “Though I'm not sure that they care much for you, either, considering how lax your training with that blaster was.”

She flushed. “It doesn't help that I was being stalked by a monster in a mask,” she spat.

Kylo Ren could hear the hidden challenge in the undertone of her voice, and, contemplating for a moment, slowly reached up and released the catch on his mask. It loosened with a dull mechanical hiss and slowly, dramatically, he pulled the headpiece off and placed it to the side. She seemed to relax as she took in the looks of someone apparently not much older than herself, the dark hair, the guarded face. It couldn't hurt to inspire some trust in him, he decided. There was something about her that itched under his skin, whispered in his thoughts, and knowing his face would let her lower her guard.

Then he could strike, and inspire some fear, too.

He leaned in slightly towards her. Her eyes were wide, defiant. “You will show me, willingly,” he coaxed. “You know that I could take it from you, if I wished.” And with that, he reached out with his crowbar of a mind and slowly, gratingly, began to peel into hers.

Her name was Rey, he found, and her thoughts tasted of grit and rust and heat, of long foodless nights and the relentless drumbeat of the desert sun, and oh, did her loneliness taste of cool sharp spring water amongst all this sand.

“You were alone, weren't you?” He murmured, deaf to her gritted teeth and voiceless whines. “So alone, waiting for family that you barely remember, that didn't care for you, to come back for you. You -” He broke off abruptly. As he pried through her mind thoughtlessly and without a care, something was sifting through his own, untrained but certainly not without skill. He met her belligerent gaze, eyes boring in, not daring to believe -

And suddenly he was no longer Kylo Ren. Ben Solo-Skywalker was 12 and anxious, anxious of the roiling power he could feel in his fingertips, anxious for his uncle’s approval (or, some sneaking part said, disapproval), anxious that his mother didn't love him - and then he was 16, he was to be initiated into the Knights of Ren, relinquishing his old name and identity, casting them off as he had cast off his sniveling classmates - the Dark of the Force weighed heavily on his shoulders, gloating at its victory, but under the heady power and the anger was something else, something he didn't quite remember feeling at the time, something intimately familiar, something -

Rey’s voice pulled him abruptly out of his reverie and out of her head. “You're afraid,” she said, her voice equal parts incredulous and vicious. “You're afraid that you'll never be as strong as Darth Vader.”

Kylo Ren turned tail and fled. He was 20, now, and assured in his position and power.

But he was still afraid.

\---

His father stood before him, a hand resting on the proffered light saber. The structure was eerily silent, watching the stretched-taunt reconciliation between estranged father and estranged son. Kylo Ren found that he was tense and anxious and scared, and that he wasn't sure he knew how much of that was genuine and how much was an act.

The sun went out, then, consumed and subsumed, and Kylo Ren felt something within himself flicker out in response. Briefly, a small thing in his head lamented at the timing, if the sun had only lasted another few moments. . .! This voice was mercilessly squashed and Kylo Ren activated his saber.

Somewhere in the background he could hear screams. That didn't matter. All that mattered, in this moment between the father and the son that no longer existed, was his victory. Kylo Ren let the moment extend, basking in it, but unsurprisingly, the man who was once his father ruined it. A single calloused hand was on his face, resting on his cheek. It was warm and comforting.

Kylo Ren released his sabers hold on the body and let it fall, unceremoniously, into the abyss. His face was impassive, but inside he was rejoicing. He'd completed his mission, or at least his own personal one. Han Solo was dead. Now that the moment had passed, he could hear Solo’s pet screaming something in its dumb animal tongue, and the startled cries of one who had yet to see life’s true harshness. There was a sharp pain in his side - he'd been shot, he vaguely noted, blood dripping through the fingers now clenched to his side, though nothing life threatening. He looked up.

On the balcony were two figures. Rey was there, mouth gaping, and her companion was shouting something. As he met her eyes, the thing he thought finally dead inside him, the thoughts he'd hoped would follow his father to the grave, took another rattling breath.

Then explosions rocked the building and the two were gone.

This could not be allowed to happen. The thing inside him, now revived, somehow, now whispering its doubts, must be destroyed. He knew this with a conviction that had no cause, no root besides his own fury.

And if she were the cause of it, then she must be eliminated.

\---

He didn't know how he'd made it to the forest. He didn't care. His light saber sizzled in the drifting snow, crimson amongst the pure white, casting a war-torn stain on everything it saw. The two stood before him, transfixed either by the weapon or the steady drip-drip-drip of blood staining the snow beneath him.

“This ends,” he said, hefting up the saber and twirling it behind him in a move that took hours to perfect, “Now.”

The two charged him. Almost lazily, he lifted a hand and chained the boiling sea of the Force within him and _pressed_ , throwing Rey back and up and into a tree. He frowned. He'd missed the protruding stake-like branch that he'd been aiming for. Shame.

Her companion howled and turned back, stumbling to her side. She didn't stir. Kylo Ren sighed. Boring. He stalked forward, saber twirling again; this would be a good day. He had dispatched Han Solo, and now he would dispatch these two irritating gnats, and his own doubts, once and for all.

The companion stood and turned to face him as he approached. There was an object in his hands and Kylo Ren felt himself freeze.

“That belongs to me,” he intoned quietly, trying to force his voice to remain dark and steady instead of shaking.

“Yeah?” The companion snarled. A blue beam of light sparked into being next to his face, illuminating his dark complexion with an unearthly glow. “So take it from me.”

The blue and red clashed, sizzling, and as Kylo Ren overcame his shock he began to see the errors in the man's form. He swept the blue saber out of his hands (this move had taken weeks, he remembered) and it landed in the snow behind him with a satisfying plunk. He cut the man down and he fell like a rock. As he contemplated his victory, he withdrew his own saber, scattering silence into the artificial night, and extended his sword hand towards the fallen weapon. It budged, but only slightly, and he frowned. This was taking too long, far too long. He pressed his power thinly, precisely, towards the saber; why would it not come?

At long last it shot out of the snow towards him. He almost didn't realize that something was wrong until it skipped past his hand, up his arm, missing his face by a bare millimeter as he stumbled backwards to avoid it.

The light saber, the weapon of choice of his old uncle and master, shot past him and into the waiting palm of Rey. She looked pale, despite her tanned complexion, but determined. Kylo Ren met her eyes. She met his, sparking with cold fury. He felt it again - the itch under his skin, the thing in his head, the cool certainty that he was wrong. Then the blue was back and their duel began and he could spare no more thoughts.

She was skilled, he found, despite her lack of training. Something told him that it was her anger that caused this, that her fall to the Dark was a possibility with the fury and loneliness he knew lived in her thoughts. He sweated and struggled, could feel his gun wound dripping more and more, creating a bloody trail as they fought - he told himself haughtily that his wound would put the two of them on equal footing but knew, guiltily, that this wasn't true.

Trees were felled with such frivolous abandon that when the planet first started disintegrating, he thought it more crashes of branches, at first, until the first chasm appeared at Rey’s back. He took the chance and pressed up against her.

They were nearly eye to eye, separated only by the sizzling heat of the light beams, red on blue. There was fear flickering in her face. He could pressure her into the crevice easily now, he knew, but something stilled his hand. This close to her, he could feel the itch again, harsh against his skin and his mind, and he knew that he couldn't kill her, not now. A desperate thought struck him, almost unbidden.

“Join me,” he said. An incredulous look flashed across her face, eclipsing the fear. “Join me,” he persisted. “You have power, and potential. All you need is a teacher. I could help you learn to use the Force the way it was meant to be used.” This, somehow, satiated both the itch and the voice, and both stilled as they waited for an answer.

She just looked awed now. “The Force,” she mumbled, and closed her eyes. Kylo Ren waited. He didn't know why but by god, he waited.

He knew she was lost to him when her eyes snapped open. The icy fury was still there, but so was a stillness, a stillness he hadn't seen in years, not since -

Not since his uncle.

He knew what would happen, then, and avoided the slash that came as she ducked behind him, their positions now reversed. The duel resumed and Kylo Ren knew something had changed. You're wounded, he rationalized desperately. You're weak right now.

But he wasn't. He'd trained too much for that. She was stronger.

A cut burned across his face, cauterized as it went, slicing across his cheekbone down to his chin. He stumbled back as she kicked him in the chest, mildly shocked that she'd landed a blow, and only barely raised his saber in time to stop the downward slash coming. She began to press his sword hand down into the snow and he knew he couldn't hold her back any more. It was over.

And so he laid in the cushion of the snow and waited for the death blow. Both parts of him now were yowling - one in rage, one in pity. He despised them both and waited for oblivion. But it didn't come. The earth cracked and spluttered and split and suddenly there was a vast space between him and Rey. She looked at him from across the gap and felt her anger and regret and fear as one entity, felt that itch under his skin, that whisper in his thoughts, that he knew now had to be the Light.

And then she turned and was gone into the whirling snow - off to find her injured friend, no doubt. He waited once more. His tracking unit would let them find him, and they wouldn't leave him behind to die, not while he was still useful to them. (He was still useful to them. He knew Han Solo was right about that much, and that he may not be useful forever.)

Thoughts rose unbidden and unopposed to his mind and he found himself as Ben again, thinking, as he drip-drip-dripped onto the stark snow, that he should have relinquished his saber.


	2. Eclipsed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Uh, shout if you have to take a piss, I guess,” Finn said. Kylo Ren spat something at him in a language he didn’t recognize. He locked the closet door.

Finn woke up three weeks after he arrived and damn, did he wish he could just go back to sleep.

Every bone in his body whined in protest, stiff-jointed and lock-muscled. His whole upper body felt like he'd sat out in the Jakku sun for too long.

Jakku. The droid. The sand and the sun and the Stormtroopers and -

Rey!

He sat bolt upright and immediately whined as white-hot pain flashed across his vision. A figure leaning on his bed jumped at the sudden motion. “Whoa, there. Mornin’, sunshine.” As Finn’s vision refocused he realized it was Poe. It was Poe Dameron, the man he’d thought was dead for what felt like forever, and the memories came rushing back. Poe just yawned. “Relax. You're not going anywhere so fast.”

Finn narrowed his eyes and grimaced but acquiesced, slowly leaning back into the pillows with a pained hiss. A book besides him shifted - a flight manual, though not for any ship that he could recognize. “Where’s Rey?” He managed to croak out. A flash of something, too brief for Finn to accurately gauge, passed through Poe’s face before it relaxed into its usual cheeky grin. He handed Finn a glass of water. He watched Poe’s face as he sipped at it. There were bags under his eyes, dark circles the size of moons, and he had a few days worth of stubble accumulated on his cheeks. BB-8 was nowhere to be seen.

“She went off to look for Skywalker a few weeks ago, not long after you got here. Hey, relax,” he warned, gently pushing Finn’s shoulder back into the bed as he spluttered and choked on the water and attempted to fall out of bed again. “I don't want to have to call in a nurse to sedate your ass. There's nothing you can do about it; it's a bit of a time sensitive thing, apparently, and she needs to get trained up ASAP. She wasn't hurt after the duel with. . . Kylo Ren, and the wookie signaled back not long ago that they were all fine and had arrived without trouble.”

Finn scowled but settled back into the bed, sulkily sipping at the water. “When can I get out of the medical bay?”

“They said whenever you feel ready to, at this point, but also not to push yourself too far at once.” He sighed as Finn began to sit up again. “So help me god, Finn, I will knock you out myself if I have to -”

“I'm fine,” Finn snapped, realizing as he said it that he was. Now that he was fully awake, what had at first felt like screaming agony was now a dull throb. “Help me get this off.” Poe looked mock-scandalized. Finn rolled his eyes. “I just want to check out the damage.”

A few carefully maneuvered moments later and Finn had to admit, he wasn't sure what he was expecting. The gash from Kylo Ren’s saber zagged diagonally across his torso, a huge knitted scar wound. It had dulled to a mild puce sort of color but he could hazard a guess that it had been angry and red at its conception.

Poe whistled. “Now that's a scar to show off to the ladies, am I right?” He teased, making Finn flush.

“Yeah, something like that,” he mumbled, managing to re-don the medical shirt by himself. The more he moved the less his aching muscles protested. “I'm hungry,” he abruptly announced. “Is there a mess hall around here?”

Poe nodded. “Yeah, whaddaya want? I'll bring something back up for you -”

“No, I'd like to walk,” Finn interrupted. “I might need some help for the first few steps but I'm completely done with laying around in this bed. I need to move a little.”

He wasn't wrong - the first few steps were hard, hard enough almost to convince Finn that maybe he should rest some more - but he persevered and soon found himself walking down the medical hallways slowly, but independently. They transferred buildings, stopping briefly at Finn’s new quarters to let him change (he slung Poe’s old jacket on and it settled on his shoulders like an old friend), and took a dizzying sort of shortcut that Finn was skeptical about but ultimately let them to the mess hall. Finn turned to face Poe, almost unthinkingly. Poe put his hands on his shoulders.

“You good?” His expression was inscrutable, full of worry and hope and pain and a plethora of other things, like a breath taken in but held instead of exhaled. Finn nodded, but waited; this was the expression of a man who had something more to say.

“They. . .” Poe released the breath, finally, and Finn felt himself respond in kind, relaxing under Poe’s hands. They were warm and heavy and comforting. “They’ve offered me a new position, scouting stuff mostly, but it’s in a different ship, one that would need a copilot, and I was wondering, I mean, when you’re feeling better, if - “

“Yes. Yes!” Finn laughed and for the first time since he’d woken up he felt light. He would stay, he would have a place to be, someplace to be useful. “Absolutely. Don’t even finish that thought; I’ve got your back.”

Finn hadn’t thought he’d ever seen someone so genuinely happy in his life - the difference between Stormtroopers under masks and people living in the real world, he supposed. They walked under the broad expanse of the archway to the dining hall together. The mess hall was mostly empty, though there were a few occupied benches. Poe cheerfully called out to his companions while Finn hovered a bit on the side, hesitant, not sure if he was welcome in this group - but Poe beckoned him forward so he followed. The people where they sat, men and women and question marks and inscrutable aliens alike, introduced themselves in a blur of names and faces that Finn knew he would forget immediately. He swore to himself to grill Poe about them later.

Conversation was upbeat and easy, about home planets and loved ones waiting at home, gentle teasing about old missions and crushes and relationships, when the conversation took what Finn thought later must have been an inevitable turn, given the company and the location and his own situation.

“So that Kylo Ren, ehhh? What a fuckin’ prick,” a woman said casually, leaning forward over the generic surface of the table, pale eyes glittering. “Word on the base is that you took quite a beating from him.”

Finn swallowed. “I guess,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. “I’ve never been that great with the whole beating up a Sith lord thing, funnily enough.”

“We hear you quite held your own with that saber.” An alien with a lilting accent and deep emerald skin propped up his chin in his hands thoughtfully. “That you managed to nick him a bit too. And that your friend, the new Jedi, is off to train with Luke Skywalker.”

“Um.” Finn squirmed a bit. The conversational tidbits had died down and now all eyes were on him. The Stormtrooper training in him reared up, hating being the center of attention, wanting nothing more than to retreat behind a mask and become inscrutable, indistinguishable, just another body.

But wasn’t that exactly what he’d run away from? He sat up straighter and set his mouth in a thin line. “Yeah. Yeah, I did, and yeah, she is.”

An appreciative murmur flowed down through the table. Poe, however, sitting tensely at Finn’s side, was the next to speak up.

“Sith Lord, my ass. The Sith of legend were legitimately terrifying. Kylo Ren’s just a rebellious adolescent with a danger kink.”

Finn frowned slightly, glancing at his friend. “It wouldn’t be helpful to underestimate him,” he said quietly, thinking of his days on various First Order ships, moments shared from Stormtrooper to Stormtrooper - when to avoid the upper bridge, what not to say, comrades there one day and vanished the next in one of the many rages of their commander.

Poe just rolled his eyes. Finn frowned. There was something off about his expression - it felt forced, unnatural, though his joking tone seemed genuine on the surface. “Come off it. Sure, he’s got power, but he’s trying way too hard for the fear factor. I mean, come on. Kylo Ren? Really? It’s not like we don’t know his real name, it’s silly.”

“He didn’t make up the name himself, you know,” Finn said. “He made that organization. The Knights of Ren.”

Recognition briefly flashed across Poe’s face, then something unreadable that made Finn flinch in concern, then mocking. “Oh, wait, hang on. Aren't those the edgy grimdark tryhard Sith prick wannabes? He fits right in! It all makes sense!”

Finn flushed. “That's one way to put it,” he mumbled, turning back to pick at his food.

“I mean, they are!” Poe snorted and stood abruptly, nearly upsetting the table. He dramatically strode down the aisle between the mess hall tables and twirled back to face Finn. He could practically see the cape. “I,” he dramatically proclaimed, striking a pose, “Am Poe Ren! All must quiver before me!”

Snickers and laughs broke out down the table but were quickly cut off. Poe scowled. “Aw, come on. Really? That’s funny.”

“Perhaps in a certain context, yes.” Leia Organa’s voice sounded strained. Finn winced. “Pilot Dameron.”

Poe froze, slapped a relaxed sort of smile on his face, and swiveled on his heel. “Ye-es, general?”

Leia snorted, apparently despite herself, as she frowned almost immediately after. “Come with me, please. You too, Finn,” she added, and Finn hastily levered himself to his feet, wincing slightly as he swung a leg over the bench. He followed the general and Poe out of the mess hall, feeling the eyes on his back as he went, and was almost glad to leave the attention behind.

“We’ve got an assignment ready for you,” Leia was saying as Finn upped his pace to catch up. “An important one. Incidentally, have you found a copilot yet?”

“Yeah, Finn’s agreed to work with lil ol’ me.” He flashed a grin at Finn as he stepped up to walk next to them.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Leia said wryly. “But you two make a good team, from what I’ve heard, so perhaps this can work out. How steady are you on your feet, Finn? After what Be- Kylo Ren,” she corrected herself, “Kylo Ren did to you I’m pleased to see you out of the medical bay.”

Finn mentally quirked an eyebrow; even if he was physically capable of it, he definitely wouldn’t show it. So far as he’d heard, Leia Organa was desperate to believe that her son may not be entirely lost to the Dark. Was forsaking his given name for the chosen one an indication of giving up? He didn’t hope so. Leia didn’t seem like the kind of leader who would bow so quickly.

“The more I move the better I feel,” he answered honestly. “I can be ready to go whenever.”

“Excellent. We don’t have a wide window to work with, according to our sources, so the sooner the better.” They stopped at the door to the planning room, which Leia opened with a few button pushes. She stepped aside as the doors swished out of place. “After you.”

\---

Finn had never really gotten the chance to appreciate just how big space was. Last time he was on a ship, he was a little preoccupied being injured; the time before that, he was almost sick with worry, and the time before that - well, and so on. And before that he was a Stormtrooper. Stormtroopers don’t appreciate the vastness of space. That’s just not how they operate.

So Finn took the time now to stare out into the void and really take it all in; for once, there really wasn’t anything else occupying his attention. He knew they would spend sporadic intervals jumping in and out of light speed, making sure to conserve fuel and avoid First Order bases, so the journey would take a few days, passing by distant stars and planets and systems, stellar nurseries and dying giants, unknowable worlds - Finn wanted to visit them all, one day, and explore. He let Poe do most of the button pushing, for now; he’d helped to take off but beyond that, he didn’t know much about this ship yet. He’d never been a natural flier, not like Rey or Poe. So instead, he spent much of his time reading through the flight manual that Poe had been skimming while he was in the medical bay.

“Aaaaalright,” Poe sighed on the third day, leaning back into his chair and popping his knuckles loudly. “Easy peasy, in ‘n’ out, raid that messenger ship and we’re leaving them to eat our dust.”

Finn snorted. “Dude, you know that they’ll have, like. . . guards and guns and shit, right?”

Poe waved a hand noncommittally. “Guns shmuns. We’re the dream team. We got this.” He leaned forward again and casually flicked the switch to send them once more into light speed. Finn gritted his teeth slightly as they made the jump, ignoring the familiar feeling of all his atoms buzzing, and waited to settle.

“Did the Resistance ever make moves like this?” At Poe’s blank stare, he elaborated. “Scouting broadly and sabotaging messengers and stuff. I don’t remember this being much of an issue.”

Poe shrugged carelessly. “I mean, it’s not like we have anything to lose, now; before they had no idea where we were based, and it wasn’t worth the risk to try to get more intel.”

Finn frowned, his brows furrowed. Something wasn't right - a little lilt to his tone, something that evaded his scrutiny. “Are you okay?” He asked suddenly.

The question must have taken Poe off guard, because while he smiled again, this one looked fake even to Finn’s untrained eye. “Yeah, ‘course. Why?” He jumped, startled, as Finn use a hand to gently turn his chin, stubble scratching his fingers. Poe avoided his eyes.

“You haven't been sleeping.” The statement - statement, not question - sprung from Finn’s lips before the thought was even completed in his mind. Poe squirmed and pulled himself out of Finn's grasp.

“I've been sleeping fine, thanks,” he said crisply, and Finn knew he was lying through his teeth. “Can we focus on what we’re supposed to be doing? We've got a mission.”

Finn shot him a suspicious look but let the matter drop, for now.

Poe glanced at the coordinates screen and grinned, almost manically. “And whaddaya know. Almost there.” He flicked the ship out of light speed and it slowed, the bright white streaks of starlight inverting and settling into points. At first, Poe couldn’t see anything unusual, anything that marked this swathe of space as any different than the one they’d been in previously; then there was a glint in the starlight of bright chrome and a ship was there, small and barely skyworthy, without even advanced light speed. From the looks of it, it could only manage brief stints at that maximum speed, and it had just emerged and was recharging. A thought suddenly struck Finn.

“How did General Organa know this would be here, at this time and place?”

Poe shrugged, unconcerned. “We’ll worry about that later.” There it was again - that carelessness, that reckless feckless danger-jumping that hadn’t been present even when Finn took his own risk and broke him out of the First Order ship. Not long ago, there had been that sense of calculation about him, in that all his risks were measured, or at least seemed to be. Poe flipped a few more switches, these ones on the console above them (conveniently distracting Finn with a glimpse of his bicep), and a magnetic field locked on to the lone carrier. “For now, we see what intel we can get and we skedaddle.”

\---

This ship was practically empty.

They dispatched the one guard and pilot with relative ease; no shots on either side for fear of a hull breach. Finn could feel his stomach in his throat. This was too easy. Something about the ship - the specific make and model - jogged a tidbit deep in Finn’s memory, barely noticed and absolutely significant.

“I’m going to scout out the rest of the ship,” he said as Poe secured the pilot and the unconscious Stormtrooper. He tried not to think too hard about who might be behind the mask.

“Hey, at least it’s small; I’ll come when I hear you scream at a shadow.” Poe grinned in that dastardly way of his. Finn felt the urge to either kiss him or punch him, and was leaning towards the latter.

But he was right - the ship was small. There was the cockpit, and the central bay, living quarters with barely enough room to extend your arms, and -

Finn remembered, quite abruptly, what sort of ship this was, and what they were used to carry.

He advanced forward, past the living quarters, blaster primed and ready, to inspect the minute cellblock. The keypad stumped him for a moment before he went with the default code - the ship’s make and model. 89 - 460. The door slid open with a hiss and he suppressed a snort; leave it to the First Order to leave the default keycode on a ship reserved for the transport of highly dangerous prisoners. He had an inkling who he would find here; he decided he’d rather ignore that inkling for now and face whoever it was when he came to it.

Bad choice, he decided. He knew he would come to it very soon. He stepped into the cellblock.

It looked empty, at first; the lights were out and didn’t switch on as Finn advanced, and so everything was swathed in a deep shadow. His boots crunched on glass scattered on the floor, gemstones in the harsh light from the corridor outside, and he realized that the glass was from the broken light fixtures.

Something moved in a cell, then, and Finn repressed the urge to scream as a body flung itself against the bars and was thrown back again, but only slightly, by the spark of a force field. “What the fu - “

“Release. Me.”

The man behind the bars was nothing like the man Finn had faced only about a month before, and for that he was glad, because the man before had been in control and was all the more deadly for it. All Finn could muster up for this one was a grotesque medley of pity and disgust. His hair hung in lank blood-matted tendrils about his face, brown eyes glittering through the curtain; his hands, now gripping the bars despite the sizzle and zap of electricity, were streaked with crimsons and maroons. For one mad moment, Finn thought that Kylo Ren was wearing glittery nail polish before realizing that some of his nails were missing, leaving the raw skin of the nail bed exposed - ripped off clawing at something, he guessed. His wrists were chained together with terrifyingly flimsy manacles of some sort of white metal, and a circlet of a similar metal was stretched across his forehead and vanished into his tangled hair.

But more than anything else Finn noticed the snarl of rage twisting his face, the animalistic sneer of yellowed teeth and the hungry eyes of a man gone half-mad, reflecting the sparks of the bars of the cage.

As if he wasn’t half-mad before, Finn reminded himself.

He slowly backed out of the room and shut the door behind him, ignoring the feeling of Kylo Ren’s stare that stayed with him long after he left the room.

Poe was actually _whistling_ when Finn got back, leaning against the wall and propping up his boots in the laps of the two still-unconscious crew members. Finn knew he would have to ruin his good mood and almost hated himself for it. “Poe?” His voice came out a croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Poe.”

Poe immediately picked up on his tone and stopped whistling, sitting up a little straighter. “What’s up?”

“I. . .” He shook his head. “Kylo Ren is here,” he said bluntly. “In the prisoner bay. This is a transport ship used to move around dangerous prisoners. He’s cuffed up, and subdued, somehow, but he’s here.”

Poe’s face had attained the approximate shade of a dirty pillowcase. Finn frowned. “Poe?” Poe just shook his head and said nothing. He seemed to chew on his words, rolling them around in his mouth before finally spitting them out like rancid meat.

“We have to take him back with us, don’t we.”

Finn didn’t respond. He knew the answer. So did Poe.

“We have to spend three days on a ship with him.” He dragged his hands over his eyes, momentarily hiding his face from view.

Finn bit his lip. “We could drag this one along, maybe,” he suggested. “Using the beam. Or you could give me the quick once-over on how to fly and I could follow you back to the base. But. . .” He let his thought trail off, staring at the two trussed-up crew members. The original plan had been to leave everyone alive, take the information that they could find, and quickly depart to minimize suspicion. With this new development, though. . .

Poe swallowed, hard enough for Finn to see his Adam’s apple bob. “All right. All right.” He exhaled heavily and pulled himself up to his feet. His face was still pale, but his expression was an odd mixture of nausea and determination. “We have to do this.”

Finn found himself standing next to Poe, one arm around his shoulders, before he knew what he was doing. “Are you sure? We could, I dunno, figure out something else, probably -”

“No,” Poe said with surprising venom. “This is the easiest way and you know it.” He took a deep breath. “Besides, you said that he was cuffed up and stuff - wait, he’s a fucking - can stun cuffs stop Force shit?”

Finn paused before replying. “No,” he said slowly. “But I think there’s something else stopping him from just breaking out. He had a headband, too, and honestly, I can’t see him wearing it for the fashion statement.”

That elicited a snort from Poe. Finn sighed to himself, relief flooding his limbs. Poe would be okay. They could do this.

Kylo Ren had gone back to lurking in the corner of his cell when they returned. He glared up at them, sneering through cracked, bloodied lips. “Did the Stormtrooper do that to him?” He muttered to Finn, momentarily forgetting his panic in curiosity and morbid fascination. Finn thought back to his days in the First Order and how Kylo Ren had acted then.

“I don’t think so,” he whispered back. “Stormtroopers are terrified of him. He probably did this to himself throwing temper tantrums.”

“I can hear you, you know.” Kylo Ren’s voice was haggard but still strong and dark, seeming to echo out from the cell. Poe shuddered. Finn squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and advanced to the bars. He opened his mouth to speak, but found he was at a loss for words - now, of all times, with two sets of unwavering gazes on him.

“We’re taking you home,” he ultimately stated, as evenly as he could, and oh, did Kylo Ren howl.

\---

Getting him on their ship proved to be an ordeal, but nothing unmanageable. There was very little fight left in him; he dragged his feet and glared from under his fringe, but didn’t attempt anything beyond that. Finn and Poe hastily herded him to an empty storage closet.

“Uh, shout if you have to take a piss, I guess,” Finn said. Kylo Ren spat something at him in a language he didn’t recognize. He locked the closet door.

Poe was tense again, Finn noticed as he settled in the copilot seat; he could tell that his shoulders were tight, even through his jacket, as he flipped switches and got them headed back to base. “So. That was definitely a thing,” Finn commented, attempting to lighten the mood. “Definitely a thing that happened.”

“Let’s not talk about the thing,” Poe said derisively, continuing to press buttons and panels with a renewed vigor. “Seriously, let’s not.”

Finn looked closer at his pilot. Poe still looked pale, making the bags under his eyes and the spotty stubble on his cheeks seem even more pronounced. He noticed Finn staring. “What?” He snapped.

“Ren did something to you, didn’t he,” Finn said softly, gently, as if he were talking to a deer - he didn’t want to scare Poe into hiding, but he couldn’t keep living like this. “When you were on that ship, when we first met.”

Poe froze for a moment, then turned to meet Finn’s eyes with his own glassy ones. “I don’t,” he said, reaching out and flipping the switch for light speed, “Want to talk about it.”

Something in Finn’s gut jerked, and he wasn’t sure if it was the light speed or his own emotions. “Poe,” he started, once he’d settled a bit. “I’m here if you need to talk, you know. You can trust me. It can’t be healthy to bottle shit like that up.”

“Whatever,” Poe said, staring out the window at the streaks of stars. “You don’t know that.” He paused, noticing his own slip that perhaps something was wrong. “I’m fine, seriously.”

They sat in a tense silence for a few moments. Those moments stretched into minutes. Finally, when a few red lights had starting blinking, Finn spoke up. “We’ve been in light speed for a really long time now. Is that normal for this ship, if we’re not running away from something?”

Poe cursed loudly and flipped the switch again, sending them spiraling back into the universe. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his face and, as he noticed the blinking lights, he cursed again.

“You’re fine, huh,” Finn said softly. He stood to go check out the engine room. “Whenever you feel like talking, if you ever do, I’ll be here for you. I just want you to know that.”

He left the cockpit and wasn’t sure if the sounds he left behind him were sobs or coughs. He knew that Poe would prefer it if he pretended they were coughs. But he was tired of pretending.

\---

“He was in my head.”

Finn glanced up from his rations as Poe sat across from him in their small living quarters. “What?”

“Kylo Ren. When. . .” He took a deep breath and locked his brown eyes on a spot somewhere above Finn’s head. “When he captured me, he had me in that room, you remember that room. He was interrogating me, which is fine, I was fine, but then he was inside my brain and he. . .” He pantomimed something with his hands, clawed fingers pulling. “ _Pushed_ , pulled, whatever, and - I cracked, Finn, I cracked and it’s my fault he found out about BB-8 at all, or Rey. It’s all my fault.”

If Poe were anyone else he would probably have burst into tears after that revelation; as it were, he merely looked watery-eyed and panicked but ultimately solid. Finn pushed aside his dinner and pulled Poe into a hug. Poe didn’t fight it and leaned tentatively, then contentedly, into Finn’s shoulder. “So that’s why you looked so sick when I told you,” he said. “Because he hurt you.” He paused. “Where _is_ BB-8, anyhow?” He felt vaguely guilty about having forgotten the little droid.

Poe shifted uncomfortably. “I sent him away back at the base. He was mother-henning me. And that’s not an excuse. He hurt you too.”

Finn shrugged slightly, careful not to jostle Poe. “Different kind of hurt. Mine was able to heal in a sick bay for three weeks. Yours runs a little deeper, I think.” He felt a sudden flare of anger, white-hot and burning, before he pushed it aside and made it vanish, leaving him with echoes of fury and revenge. That was the sort of thing Kylo Ren succumbed to. He wouldn’t be like that. Not today, not when Poe needed support. “We’ll make it work. I’ll help however I can. For now, I’ll deal with feeding him and stuff. You just pretend he’s not even there.”

Poe laughed, a noise devoid of any actual humor, and turned, settling himself to rest on Finn’s shoulder. Finn swallowed. Poe’s hair tickled the side of his neck, and his breathing, for once, was deep and regular. He could deal with feeding Ren later. For now, he was content to sit like this forever.

But obviously, forever doesn’t last.

It was too soon when he found himself in front of the locked supply closet door, ration tray in one hand. He’d left the blaster behind, deciding it wasn’t worth the extra security to risk Ren getting his hands on it, manacled as they were. “I’m opening the door,” he called out. “Stand back.” There was no response. Finn took this as a go-ahead and unlocked the door.

Kylo Ren was sitting in the far corner of the makeshift cell much as he had in his old cell aboard the First Order ship, knees bent and head leaning against the wall. The fury was still in his eyes, but he sat completely still, like some sort of grotesque statue; the wild rage from the night before had vanished, leaving a seemingly-exhausted shell in its wake. “Food,” Finn said, sliding the tray across the floor with his foot towards Kylo Ren. “Eat, or don’t. I don’t care.”

Kylo Ren said nothing. Finn left and locked the door behind him, leaving the questions burning on his tongue unspoken.

When he came back the next morning - or 10 hours later, anyways, as morning as you can get on a spaceship - the tray had been picked clean and Kylo Ren was asleep. Finn left him a new tray and spent a moment looking at the face of the man who, despite his disgust, was interwoven in his life; his old leader, and now the son of his new one, the man who had injured him and all of his friends in turn. The anger was gone from his face, while he slept. This, Finn knew, was as serene as he would ever look and probably had ever looked. His features were long and sharp and drawn, dramatic and dark against the pale bloodiness of his face and skin. Finn left.

And so the cycle repeated. Poe doggedly avoided the room, began sleeping and taking meals in the cockpit as to avoid walking past it. The bunk above Finn felt too empty for him to sleep reliably. On the third evening, or evening as it was on the ship, Finn brought Kylo Ren his dinner but did not leave. Ren blinked at the change and spoke for the first time in three days. “What do you want?”

Finn said nothing for a moment and instead inspected him. Kylo Ren met his gaze, eyes solid and determined, used to being the center of attention and so unflinching in the spotlight. “Why were you taken as a prisoner?”

Ren said nothing for a few long moments, electing instead to quietly push his food around the tray, never breaking eye contact with Finn. Finn felt the urge to glance away, as if Kylo Ren couldn’t tell anyways, as if he were still wearing a helmet, but shook himself and held firm.

“I failed,” he said eventually, simply, as if that were all there were to it. “I killed Han Solo but I failed to kill you or the girl.”

“So you were going to be punished,” Finn surmised.

“I suppose so.” Finn could detect a hint a wryness on that grating voice, but only slightly. “I suppose I outlived my usefulness, briefly.”

Finn broke the eye contact and left. He didn’t forget to lock the door behind him, but for a brief pang of a moment, he almost regretted having to do so.

\---

Of course Poe had radioed ahead to alert General Organa that her son was coming back with them. But what could they have done to prepare on the base, besides activating a cell block and wringing their hands in anticipation? Not much, Finn thought.

But General Leia Organa had obviously done a lot of thinking and a lot of preparation, at least mentally.

They stepped off the ship, Kylo Ren walking between them; Finn had his hand sturdily wrapped around one elbow and Poe, on the other side, mirrored him. He looked sick again. He shot Poe a comforting look that he hoped he caught. Kylo Ren stood tall and strong, eyes sharp and furious, and did not resist. Blasters of all shapes, sizes, and grades were trained on him, ready to blow him to pieces should he so much as twitch wrong.

The tense stillness was broken when General Organa strode forward and placed a ringing slap across her son’s cheek. Finn winced automatically, glancing at Ren. He didn’t turn his head back to face his mother, and instead shot Finn a look of the purest loathing he’d ever seen. Once, that would have sent him scurrying for the hills. Now, he just passed him off to a pair of new guards and let the general lead the way to the cell blocks.

Finn immediately relaxed as most of the eyes followed the general and her newly recovered son. He grabbed Poe’s wrist and slipped off away from the hanger and the crowds. Poe was shaking. They wandered until they found an empty hallway; Finn certainly didn’t know where he was, nor did he care, and doubted that Poe did in this state, either.

He placed his hands on Poe’s shoulders, remembering how Poe had done the same a week before to him, then reconsidered and moved his hands up to cup his cheeks. His stubble tickled Finn’s coarse palms.

“You really need a shave,” he joked softly. Poe made a half-laughing, half-choking sound. “Hey. It’s gonna be okay. I promise.”

They hugged, warm and solid and comforting under the harsh lighting of the hanger hallways, and Finn found himself believing it.

\---

Leia Organa spent five hours that first day in the cell block, alone, with her son. Her anxious lieutenants were practically biting their nails when she emerged, unscathed and looking more focused than she had in weeks. She returned again and again, day after day, to exchange words with the child she’d lost, and each day she had the same look on her face, as if she could convince anyone of anything in her confidence.

Time waned, and so did her patience, visibly - but Finn noticed that she was calling him Ben again.

The third week after his arrival, a familiar ship docked in the dead of the night, and word spread like wildfire across the base, so that even Finn, curled up with Poe in his sleeping quarters, heard within minutes.

Rey was back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this ended up a fair bit longer than i thought it would - almost 8 pages longer, in fact! merry belated christmas to you all, i suppose :D thanks to everyone for reading, and for the positive feedback, kudos, and bookmarks, too!! super appreciated
> 
> (also, if you catch any errors, feel free to point them out - i only did one read-through because it's almost 1AM and dammit, i just wanted to publish it :"D)
> 
> chapter 3, and for now the final chapter, will probably go up sometime next week. . .! while that will be the end of this lil series thing i may start a different one if i feel like dabbling with this some more. . . also, the physicist in me is screaming at how i described the stars at light speed but Canon so blahhh
> 
> if you would like to continue to distract me from my college applications (please please please please) send me some prompts (star wars or otherwise, but im most likely to actually write star wars at the moment) at my tumblr [HERE](thegreatratsby.tumblr.com) and i will fill a bunch of them over the next few days probably!! im in the mood for star wars drabbles ;0
> 
> but in the meantime, thanks again to everyone for reading!! <3


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